Roots of Thinking

Maxine Sheets-Johnstone is an independent scholar and Courtesy Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon.

"A significant contribution to the study of early humans, this book is a philosophical anthropology.... it makes genuinely novel, and highly persuasive, claims within the field itself."-David Depew "Ranging across the humanities and sciences, this thoroughly original book challenges both traditional metaphysics and contemporary cultural relativism. In their place, it persuasively develops a phenomenonological, tactile-kinesthetic account of the origins of thinking. This philosophical anthropology could not be more timely. It replaces the 'linguistic turn' with a promising new 'corporeal turn.'"-John J. Stuhr, University of Oregon "This work takes a much-needed stand in the inter-disciplinary field of philosophical anthropology. Sheets-Johnstone is well-read in the history of philosophy and in contemporary anthropology. The point of view she offers is inventive, insightful, well-established, and fruitful."-Thomas M. Alexander, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

• Acknowledgments Part I: Overview 1. The Thesis, the Method, and Related Matters Part II: Paleoanthropological Case Studies 2. The Hermeneutics of Tool-Making: Corporeal and Topological Concepts 3. On the Origin of Counting: A Re-Thinking of Upright Posture 4. Hominid Bipedality and Primate Sexuality: A Further Re-Thinking of Upright Posture 5. Corporeal Representation 6. On the Origin of Language 7. Hominid Bipedality and Sexual Selection Theory 8. On the Conceptual Origin of Death 9. On the Origin and Significance of Paleolithic Cave Art Part III: Theoretical and Methodological Issues 10. The Thesis and Its Opposition: Cultural Relativism 11. The Thesis and Its Opposition: Institutionalized Metaphysical Dualism 12. The Case for a Philosophical Anthropology 13. Methodology: The Hermeneutical Strand 14. Methodology: The Genetic Phenomenology Strand 15. The Case for Tactile-Kinesthetic Invariants Name Index